Remembering Pearl Harbor: Memories strong 70 years later

It was a quiet Sunday morning, subtle and nice. A soft Hawaiian breeze greeted the citizens of Honolulu as the sun rose above the island of Oahu. The early risers of the United States military didn’t know it, but their lives were about to change forever. Unfortunately for some of them, life was going to end this Sund...

It was a quiet Sunday morning, subtle and nice. A soft Hawaiian breeze greeted the citizens of Honolulu as the sun rose above the island of Oahu. The early risers of the United States military didn’t know it, but their lives were about to change forever. Unfortunately for some of them, life was going to end this Sunday morning. That’s because on Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor — the station of thousands of servicemen and the hub of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet — went from being a place to an unimaginable event.

Bob Stone passed away in June 2010. He served in the Navy and was stationed at Pearl Harbor on the USS California that fateful day.

“He didn’t talk about it for years,” Stone’s daughter, Cheryl McGowan, said. “Later on he did begin to share his story, he visited some school classrooms and that kind of thing.”

For everyone it was just another day. Those stationed at Pearl Harbor and the nearby air fields and bases were going through their morning routines or sleeping in.

“It was about 7 o’clock in the morning when in fact I had just finished eating and getting out on the deck where we ate our meals,” Stone told the Courier-Post in 2007. “They were setting up for church services on the bow of the ship and the master at arms — which is the same as a policeman — he was up there visiting with those guys and all of a sudden he came running back, ‘the Japs are coming, the Japs are coming.’

“From then on, all kinds of things happened.”

Stone and his fellow shipmates on the California were positioned along Ford Island in the middle of the harbor a distance away from Battleship Row, where ships like the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma were stationed.

“The California had the highest ranking officer (of the fleet) on board at the time, and so they got the first birth which was actually a little away from Battleship Row,” McGowan said. “When the planes began to fly over they didn’t really give it much thought until bombs began to drop.”

Pearl Harbor was under attack.

Japanese dive bombers, high level bombers and gunners swarmed the harbor by air shooting at sailors, bombing ships and taking out a large number of U.S. military aircraft that had been grouped together at Hickam Field and other bases across Oahu.

Explosions were everywhere. Ships began to sink or capsize. Navy seamen dodged bullets as they tread the salty waters of the harbor. On land additional servicemen grabbed guns and did what they could to get airborne and fight the slaying pilots of the Japanese military.

“I can still see the wild, chaotic carrying on that was going on,” Stone said in 2007. “I also think about the guys I went into the service with that didn’t make it.”

Page 2 of 3 - The California came under attack and eventually sank into the turquoise waters that were now mixed with the blood of innocent lives.

“As soon as everyone became aware there was actually an attack, then they all had positions they had trained for,” McGowan said. “He (Stone) said it was pretty much chaos, they scrambled to secure the injured.”

Meanwhile in the United States, word of the attack was hitting the airwaves.

Bob Richards was a teenager in upstate New York.

“I can remember the little radio, we turned it on and that’s how I learned of Pearl Harbor,” Richards recalled. “Six months later I was in the service, the United States Marine Corps, and spent two years in the Pacific.”

After two rounds of attacks, the Japanese pulled back.

The damage had been done though. Fires burned atop the water, black smoke billowed from the sunken ships, the bodies of dead sailors floated in water and hospitals were crowded with thousands of injured servicemen and civilians. When all was said and done the death toll capped at 2,403.

The United States officially entered World War II.

Harry Graves had distant cousins aboard the Arizona. That attack alone accounted for nearly half of the casualties with 1,177.

A total of 165 ships were at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941; the Arizona and the USS Utah were never raised and are today permanent memorials.

“They’re still down there,” Graves said of his family members.

One year later, Paul Bomar was drafted to serve in the Navy. When he made it to Pearl Harbor, the setting was still “pretty bad.”

“We were (passing through),” he said. “We were there two days. Ships were sunk, etcetera. We stayed on the ship.”

Richards also made it to Pearl Harbor during his tour of duty during World War II. He was stationed in Hawaii at Maui.

“You could see the remnants of the battleship in the water,” Richards, who left home in November 1943, said. “I was 18-years-old, and (Hawaii) was just a brand new place to be, nice weather, and Pearl Harbor was just a different place for us.”

In the 70 years since the attacks a memorial has been built atop the Arizona, an average of a million people visit it each year. To this day, oil continues to bubble out of the ship’s remains. Bodies of the entombed sailors were removed over time, but efforts eventually ceased. All that were not rescued from the ship are considered buried at sea by the Navy.

Yet despite the tragic day, Dec. 7, 1941 is also remembered as a day to not only remember those who died, but to acknowledge those who fought back during the 110-minute attack.

Page 3 of 3 - McGowan calls the "day of infamy" “significant.”

“It’s an honor for me to say that my dad was part of the service when the attack happened and how they reacted in a heroic way. It is special. It was always special to Dad too, he always appreciated the recognition that he would get,” McGowan said. “As he got older, he got even more emotional. He was very proud of serving, it was an honor for him. He was a member of the Pearl Harbor Survivor’s Association and he would attend reunions with them. It was very meaningful to him.”